Thursday, July 16, 2015

Kudos to Bonita Springs City Council on approval of downtown redevelopment design

Over the past year, BikeWalkLee has been closely following the development of Bonita's downtown improvement plan and has been an enthusiastic supporter of the project, which will make downtown a walkable/bikeable/vibrant place, with lots of complete streets features. (See BikeWalkLee's June 19th blog post for background: http://bikewalklee.blogspot.com/2015/06/video-of-june-9th-special-public.html). We are thrilled that the Council voted on July 15th to move forward with construction of the project design that was presented at the June 9th public workshop.  We concur with the Naples Daily News editorial below and also say thanks and kudos to the Bonita Springs City Council members.

Naples Daily News Editorial: Historic day for Bonita Springs, July 16, 2015  




Downtown Bonita Springs has its share of historic places. Wednesday became a historic day in downtown’s future.

Years in the making, the Bonita Springs City Council approved a maximum $15.6 million long-overdue overhaul of its downtown, a cost to be shared between city and Lee County governments.

The work will improve drainage, parking, landscaping and other amenities in an approximately 1,500-acre area along Old 41 Road, from near Terry Street to the Oak Creek bridge and east for a block along Felts Avenue. It provides for two traffic-calming roundabouts as part of the project and would relocate some utility lines underground.

The city intends to take on additional costs because the project has grown in size from its original intent when a potential budget for the work was created two and a half years ago.

“We have one chance to do this right,” City Manager Carl Schwing notably pointed out.

Talk of remaking downtown Bonita Springs in one form or another goes back to before it even became a city more than 15 years ago. Kudos to the council for making Wednesday a day for the history books in downtown Bonita Springs.

 http://www.naplesnews.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-historic-day-for-bonita-springs_34377819

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